Commission of Fine Arts Reviews 2012 Presidential Dollar Designs, Recommmends Three
Coin Update News
The Commission of Fine Arts (CFA) reviewed proposed designs for the 2012 Presidential Dollars during a meeting held July 15, 2010. The United States Mint provided the CFA with four to six obverse candidate designs for each coin. The CFA made recommendations for three out of the four coins to be released. The Presidential Dollar Program, which began in 2007, honors the former Presidents of the United States in the order served. Four different coins are released each year with the obverse design featuring a portrait of the President being honored. The reverse of each coin has featured a rendition of the Statue of Liberty designed by Don Everhart. The coins to be issued for 2012 will feature Chester A. Arhur, Grover Cleveland (first term), Benjamin Harrison, and Grover Cleveland (second term).
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Before You Buy or Sell Coins
PCGS Blog
I just bought a new flat screen TV for my daughter. Before I bought it I spent a couple hours on the Internet researching different models and comparing prices from different Retailers. Good thing I did because I didn’t know that 120 Hz screens have the best performance for video games! It’s the same thing with coins. I only spent $900 on the TV but I know I spent more time learning about my options then some coin buyers do before spending far greater amounts on a coin. So what should you do before you buy a coin? (By the way the exact same information applies when you are selling.) I have always thought there are three basic pieces of information that are essential to know before buying: population; APR (auction prices realized) and pricing. Let’s dig into each a little more.
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John Paul Jones on a Comitia Americana Medal
Stack’s News
The only naval hero honored in the Comitia Americana series (struck by the Paris Mint for the Continental Congress) is Scottish-born John Paul Jones (1747-1792). Jones, commemorated on a 57.3mm piece, is remembered for his exploits on the French-built Bonhomme Richard (Poor Richard, a tribute to Benjamin Franklin) which electrified the world during the American Revolution. The obverse shows a uniformed bust of Jones as Commander of the Fleet. The reverse depicts the sea fight of Bonhomme Richard and HMS Serapis off the Scottish coast on September 1779. The British ship was captured by Jones and made part of the infant American navy. This Paris Mint medal was the work of Augustin Dupré, though his name does not appear on this example, struck from 19th-century copy dies made at the Philadelphia Mint that deliberately omitted his name.
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The 1938-D Mercury Dime
Numismatic News
Perhaps it is time we take a second or even a first look at some of the lower mintage Mercury dime dates like the 1938-D. Right now the 1938-D seems fairly stable in terms of price, but you have to think that $34 for an MS-65 and $62 for an MS-65 with full split bands is awfully inexpensive considering its mintage and the potential for demand for a coin that is now more than 70 years old. The 1938-D Mercury dime had a mintage of 5,537,000. It seems unlikely that a coin with such a mintage would be overlooked and especially unlikely that it would be overlooked for seven decades. However, in the case of the Mercury dime you have a coin set that traditionally has basically been about one date: the 264,000 mintage 1916-D. If any dates were seen as being in the same class as the 1916-D, they were not regular dates but rather the 1942/41 and 1942/41-D. overdates.
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Numismatist Eric Newman Discovers Audubon’s First Engraved Illustration
The E-Sylum
For more than half a century, scholars and biographers of famed bird artist and ornithologist John James Audubon had been stumped. In an 1824 diary entry, the young French immigrant, who lived for several years at Mill Grove in Montgomery County, mentioned that he had given a drawing of a running grouse to a Philadelphia engraver for use on a New Jersey banknote. It would have been a key moment – the first published illustration for the struggling artist, then 29 years old. But if so, where was it? Nobody could find it. And as time went by, many began to dismiss the story as a typical Audubon exaggeration. But Robert Peck, curator of art and artifacts at the Academy of Natural Sciences, decided to give it one last try. What he and Eric Newman, a numismatic historian from St. Louis, found has rocked the world of Audubon scholars, who are calling their discovery “a eureka moment.”
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Coin Information Adds Value
Coin Values
Information is a key component in determining an object’s value and sometimes a nugget of a coin’s history can substantially increase a coin’s price. For example, one could argue that research, suggesting that a 1794 Flowing Hair dollar graded Specimen 66 by Professional Coin Grading Service was the first silver dollar ever struck by the U.S. Mint, strongly boosted the coin’s importance to justify the reported $7,850,000 that it traded for in a private treaty sale. In other words, the research elevated the coin from being a noteworthy early U.S. coin of great interest to specialists to a landmark rarity with broader appeal.
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The Willow Tree Coins
NumiStories
John Hull’s second series of silver coins produced at his Boston, Massachusetts mint were the first dated coins in what would become the United States. This “Willow Tree” design is believed to have been produced from 1653 to 1660. It was determined that Hull’s simple “NE” coins were easy to counterfeit and prone to clipping because of the absence of a border to the design. Clipping was the process of cutting slivers of silver off the edges of coins and passing the now underweight coins at full value. On October 19, 1652 legislation was passed paving the way for the new design. The “Willow Tree” name was first noted in W.E. Woodward’s sale of the Joseph Mickley collection in 1867. These coins were very crudely struck, perhaps on a rocker press rather than by hand, the “tree” appearing as a mass of lines and squiggles that really doesn’t resemble any specific tree. The coins were struck in denominations of threepence, sixpence, and shilling with the obverse consisting of the tree in the center surrounded by inner and outer rings of dots.
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“Blue Pack” Ike Dollars Present Storage Challenge
NCS
The 1971 debut of the Eisenhower Dollar was highly anticipated by collectors. The circulating edition wasn’t released until November of that year, but on July 1 collectors could begin sending in their orders for the silver-clad editions made at San Francisco. These included the proofs, packaged in a rigid plastic holder within a brown cardboard box, and sold for a whopping $10. Also offered were uncirculated examples at $3 apiece. As delivered, these were packaged in the same transparent, flexible “pliofilm” (polyester) material used for the Mint’s annual uncirculated sets. The pliofilm sleeve was inserted into a fitted blue envelope properly imprinted for the coin.
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What’s a Fair Price for the Silver 5-Ounce ATB ‘Quarters’?
Dave Harper
With silver at roughly $18 a troy ounce presently, what do you think a fair price would be for the Mint to charge for the upcoming silver versions of the America the Beautiful quarters? Each coin will contain five troy ounces, or $90 worth of bullion. It will be an unusual issue. The U.S. government has never issued five-ounce coins before. The coin will have twice the diameter of a Morgan dollar and will be unusually thin, so thin in fact that a special new press had to be purchased in Germany to strike it. That is new equipment, the cost of which, will have to be amortized during the coining program.
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PCGS CoinFacts Turns One
PCGS Blog
PCGS CoinFacts turned one year old on July 27! PCGS CoinFacts was already a big baby when it was born, having gestated for over ten years.  However, in the last year, thanks to lots of attention from our IT department and our Board of Experts, PCGS CoinFacts has put on a lot of meat and muscle. Enhancements include: Thousands of new images, ranging from high-grade modern coins to classic, ultra-rarities and everything in between. Condition Census – a listing of the top five examples all U.S. coins (top ten for rarities, if there are that many!) Hundreds of new narratives from experts in every area – anecdotes, facts, and figures from people in-the-know. Million Dollar Coin Club – a roster of coins that have sold for over a million dollars (and those that will soon).
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CCAC Pans Coin Designs
Numismaster
Not just any old coin design will do. That’s the message the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee sent loud and clear July 27 as it recommended designs for only one of eight coins presented by the U.S. Mint. “We’re putting more value on our recommendations,” said CCAC Chairman Gary Marks. So after adopting a new voting procedure that calls for a majority rather than plurality of votes before a coin design can be considered “recommended,” the CCAC only gave thumbs up to an obverse and reverse design for the 2011 First Spouse coin honoring Lucretia Garfield. But the CCAC isn’t blaming the Mint artists for the disappointing designs. “The artists are pretty much told what to render,” Marks said. “There isn’t a lot of creativity going on in what the artists are allowed to do.” And that’s where design excellence comes in, Marks said.
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Money of the German Colonies
CoinsWeekly
Already in 1890, a first emission of copper coins was issued in Berlin by order of the German East Africa Company. They were called Pesa and show on the obverse a laurel wreath and the Arabic legend “Company of Germany“. On its reverse the imperial eagle was depicted. An Indian Rupee, the most important coastal currency, equated 64 Pesa. Pesa were issued in high numbers (in 1892 alone, the emission’s last year, 27.541.389 were manufactured). The silver coins, emitted since 1891, were issued in considerably lower numbers. They show on the obverse the German Emperor and on the reverse the coat of arms of the German East Africa Company, a striding lion in front of a palm tree. The fractions were one quarter, one half, one, and a double Rupee thereby matching the local currency situation.
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Crossover, Cross-under, or Cross-out?
Coin Update News
A legitimate “crossover” involves a coin graded by one company earning the same grade by another company. A “cross-under,” as the name implies, entails a graded coin receiving a lower grade by a different company. A “cross-out” concerns a graded coin being returned as non-gradable due to tampering, damage or questionable authenticity. My local dealer has told me that third-tier companies often grade 20 or more points higher on the 70-scale for mint state and proof coins, when compared to NGC or PCGS. I not only agree; I am embarrassed to submit some of these coins in their holders to PCGS, marking “Genuine” on the submission sheet, because sometimes I really do suspect a slabbed counterfeit. I have one such coin now undergoing analysis at PCGS.
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PCGS’s David Hall – How I Got Started
PCGS Blog
I started collecting coins in 1959 at age 12. My grandmother was a coin collector. She was also a heavy smoker. At the time, cigarettes were found in vending machines all over the place, the cost was 22 cents a pack. You put a quarter in the vending machine and you got a pack of cigarettes. Inside the cellophane wrapped pack was your change…three shinny new pennies. That’s how my grandmother got started. She saved pennies, then nickels, then dimes, then quarters and halves, placing them in her Whitman blue book coin albums. My grandfather was very old country (Poland) old school…very conservative. He would not let my grandmother ever buy a coin she needed for her collection.
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The NE (New England) Coinage of 1652
NUmiStories
On May 27, 1652 an act was passed by the Massachusetts General Court providing for the establishment of a mint. Over the next few weeks the Court hashed out the specifics of the mint’s location and operation. It was determined that John Hull, a silversmith, would become mintmaster, along with Hull’s friend Robert Sanderson assisting. Controversy surrounds the actual reasons for the creation of a mint at this time. Phillip Mossman states in his incredible book “Money of the American Colonies and Confederation” that, “the mint came into existence as a reaction to the lightweight, counterfeit, and debased silver coins which appeared in New England very quickly after the initial settlements.”
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Are Price Increases Hurting Annual U.S. Mint Sales?
MInt News Blog
Sales of the United States Mint’s two most popular annual sets, the 2010 Mint Set and the 2010 Proof Set, debuted with lower sales compared to previous years. The increased price for each set may be one of the factors contributing to the decline. This year’s annual sets included price increases of $4 and $2 for the Mint Set and Proof Set, respectively. Both increases took place despite a reduction in the number of coins included in each set. The 2010 Mint Set went on sale July 15, 2010. In the debut sales period through July 18, the US Mint recorded sales of 200,764 sets. In the most recent sales report covering data through July 25, sales had reached 247,085. This is a far cry from the initial sales for the 2009 Mint Set.
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Famous Americans Printed Money
Numismatic News
Now that everyone has safely acquired their 50-state quarters, it might well be time to consider another collecting option when it comes to the original 13 states of the United States, but this time it might be worth considering items that were actually circulating at the time the Founding Fathers were building a nation. It might be surprising to many, but a collection of the notes of the colonies that became the first 13 states is possible and when discussing historically important American notes it is really a collection without peer as such a collection is not possible with coins. In some respects with all the interest in 50-state quarters and the attention given those first days of the nation, it is hard to understand why the notes of the period have received so little attention.
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Dollar Coins Belong in a Pirate Chest
Boston Herald
The deal is supposed to be simple: If I insert a $10 bill for a $2 item, the machine coughs up eight bucks in return. So why are the MBTA Charlie Card machines dumping out Chuck E. Cheese’s tokens? I usually pay my subway fares with a credit card, so I was stunned when the machine at Alewife went into jackpot mode and dispensed a handful of golden one-dollar coins. My change included some Sacagaweas – the tribute to that gorgeous tour guide of the Lewis and Clark expedition – and some obscure U.S. presidents who usually only get mentioned on “Jeopardy!” My first reaction: Skee-Ball, anyone? I may as well try to give a cashier those foil-wrapped chocolate coins. J.P. Fulciniti, owner of Fulciniti’s Market deli in Waltham, tells me he comes across only a few of these dollar coins a week, but they make a memorable impact.
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